


Exodus

by drinkbloodlikewine, kyrilu



Series: Here I Am [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark Will, First Time, M/M, Postcards, Religious Content, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1802119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Some day they'll go down together.'<br/>-Bonnie Parker.</p><p>Matthew and Will run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exodus

The handcuffs are still around his wrists, but Matthew thinks he can feel Will’s touch on his skin. He shifts Will’s coat aside, and then looks out the window, at the scenery streaming past them. He’s out. They’re out. He can see the smoke rising from a distance and the car is humming and they’re _free_.

“How many, do you think?” Matthew says, almost dreamily.

He’s always like this after a fire. He doesn’t know why, but he can never tear his eyes off of one he’s set, even if he’s retreating from it, the last sparks before it disappears from his sight. The wail of fire engines are audible: a cacophony, a symphony.

“That was good. You did good,” he tells Will, and then smiles, ruefully, when he sees the terse set of Will’s jaw. Half a profile of Will’s sweat-lined face, while his hands tremble on the wheel. Will hasn’t said a word, his eyes fixed on the road.

Matthew sighs, and says, “Pull over, Will. Get me out of these things.” He jingles the handcuffs at his wrists, and they make a metallic clinking sound, another noise for the cacophony.

Will’s eyes flicker in the rearview mirror and he gives a shaky nod. He finds a place in the road, out of sight, and then he seems to slump into his seat. Turns his face toward Matthew, unspeaking.

Will has more than blood on his hands now: he has soot, he has the rubble of stone angels. He’s falling fast, fast, and Matthew looks at Will solemnly, his brow furrowed, and leans over to press a kiss on the corner of Will’s mouth.

The skin tastes like salt - perspiration from the heat - and Matthew darts his tongue out to taste it again, and again. He leans over farther, and the handcuffs chafe against his wrists with the movement, but he doesn’t care.

“Dear Will,” he murmurs, as if he’s starting a letter. Will’s eyes flicker in response.

I missed you, he doesn’t say, and there’s so much to say, more than what they put down on paper. Matthew wants to press out Matthew 9:9 to the side of Will’s mouth with every kiss: _As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew...He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him._

 

* * *

 

The sudden silence in the car crashes over Will like a wave. Every suppressed reaction, every stifled response to the panic around him - the panic he caused - smashes into him all at once. He doesn’t fight it, no - he lets the riptide pull him under, nose and mouth and throat and lungs filling until he’s drowning. Until he hears his name, called through the pressure in his head and the deafening rush in his ears, hears his name called by his own steadfast prophet in sweet supplication.

“Matt,” he sighs suddenly, drawing in a deep breath as he surfaces.

He lifts his hands to Matthew’s face and turns towards the reverent kisses that greet him like the breath of life. Matthew’s mouth tastes of ash and their lips still warm as embers, like they’d never been parted at all. Will leans far over the seats to press towards him, a hunger in his mouth and tongue and teeth grazing softly along Matthew’s lips as though to test his own reality, as though to kiss away the guilt that hangs burning between them. _Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged._ His fingers spread over Matthew’s cheeks and through his hair and over his ears, down his neck, drawing as close as he can, lips finally parting flushed with breathless desperation.

“I missed you,” Will whispers hoarsely, his words dry tinder to their ardor. “I missed you so fucking much.” Will presses his forehead to Matthew’s and closes his eyes to steady himself. They’re here, now, right now, here together and away from there. He startles at the clink of metal as Matthew reaches for him, a pale smile appears and fades.

“Hell,” he breathes, voice weak. A map falls by the wayside as Will leans into the back and digs beneath several backpacks piled across the seats. He finds the shotgun that he doesn’t remember bringing and sets it on the floor, beside a sack of dog food. A shadow passes over his features as his fingers brush past it, and he snares the Dremel from beneath a bag.

He takes Matthew’s hands in his and palm to palm they touch, like so many times before. Their eyes meet for only a moment before Will opens the window to the car and begins to cut through the cuffs. It’s loud and it stinks and it takes longer than Will anticipated, from the degree of muttered curses beneath his breath, but after a time, the shackles are thrown off, first one and then the other.

He squints at the battered blade of the tool and drops it to the floor behind him. “That’s that. Twelve hours or less before they realize we’re gone. Maybe  another twelve after that before they find the devices and start to fit it all together.” Will’s head aches with what they’ve left behind them, everything crowding the front of his skull all at once, heat and hangovers and sleeplessness and shame, and he shoves a hand beneath his glasses to try to rub the fire from behind his eyes.

“We can’t go back,” he reminds himself, with the ghost of a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and Baltimore in his rearview. “So what happens now?”

 

* * *

 

 

Matthew rubs his wrists, feeling them free, feeling them loose. “We drive,” he says, simply, and the trance that he had undergone after the fire is gone. It’s as if his body is tingling; he has Will on his mouth and his hands. He finds the map that Will had dropped, smooths it over, and holds it out.

He’s never left Maryland before for a long period of time. He’s ventured out, sometimes, going on a handful of meandering drives. He’s been to Virginia to see Will’s house. He had tracked down the lonely heart killers, following their trail of bodies. He’s always thought that Baltimore would be his city: his city, where his mother worked, where he grew up, where he was institutionalized, where he works. Where he set his first fire and where he met Andy and where he met Will. He thinks at times that he has this city inside of him - a place where criminal activity is often higher than average; a place that houses the Chesapeake Ripper - but he looks at the gray sky, and knows that it’s time to go.

He wonders how it’s like. The South.

How should they start? Should they work their way towards Will’s origins, or just keep going, not having a specific destination in mind? Should they cast a random hand out on the map, and where a finger lands is their goal?

 _Choices, choices_ , Matthew thinks, and silently laughs to himself, and realizes that he’s never felt so free.

They stop at a Baltimore liquor store to pick up drinks, snacks. Matthew has borrowed a jacket of Will’s, and slides the hood to hide his face. The store is a rag-tag place with all sorts of goods stocked, and Matthew stops to squeeze Will’s shoulder when Will hovers over a seemingly random aisle shelved with dog toys.

He pauses by a rack of postcards: the Peale Museum, Mount Vernon, the Clara Barton House, the Antietam Battlefield. A quick moment of deliberation, and he takes out a postcard of the Baltimore Basilica. He’s been there before with his mother, once, a night stolen out to see the dome and skylights, dedicated to Mary.

He turns the card in his hands, thinking. Then he remembers to find stamps and a package of ballpoint pens.

 

* * *

 

_It’s so much easier to write with a ballpoint pen than the pencil stub he used at the hospital. He relishes the black ink flowing over the shiny cardstock of the postcard. He writes in his usual script: neat, narrow letters that are able to fit in the limited space._

_Right now, Will is driving. He looks over Matthew’s shoulder occasionally to catch the words, and to frown, disapproving, but he doesn’t still Matthew’s hand._

 

Dear Boss,

I’ve never met you before, but you know of me. Don’t fret; Will is in good company and we’re prepared to have quite the road trip. The Chesapeake Ripper is officially your problem now, but we’re sure you can handle it. I’ve heard you’ve been called ‘the guru’ - and this is a warning, guru - if you’re going to chase us, your path won’t be easy. We are a force of nature like you’ve never seen before. “And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea…”

If you doubt me, just look at our fire. All those stone angels burning down, flames in their eyes.

Will we be on your Most Wanted list? I hope you find a flattering picture of me.

_Matthew doesn’t sign it._

 

* * *

 

South.

Away from the big cities, away from the cold winters, away from the ash and snow. Not New Orleans (although Will hopes, someday, maybe, he can show her to Matthew - he’s certain he would love the carnal spirituality that vines like honeysuckle through every crack of the city and its inhabitants) but deeper, into bayou country, dark recesses of small towns overhung with Spanish moss and smothering warmth. Into the secret shadowed places where questions won’t demand a truthful answer but only a passing politeness, where they can finally rest unhurried and unharried and spread their wings.

Saint Mary Parish, Will decides, and Matthew grins.

He lets Matthew speak, or not, remaining mostly quiet as tension slowly unfurls with each of the six hours they put between themselves and their transgressions that day. It’s eased along each time Will glances beside himself to the prophet in the passenger seat, and a few times they catch each other looking and smile, faintly amused, watching as though in confirmation that they’re really there, together. Sometimes in the stillness their palms slide together, fingers lacing in silent reassurance.

As the sun starts to lay low over the Virginia woods, Will feels the night pull at him for the first time in countless days. They find a ramshackle motel beside a forest, and Will pulls in between the campers and beaters and sighs in a way that sounds like it’s his first time breathing. Forehead pressed against the wheel, he listens to the engine click for a few minutes before dislodging himself to pay for a room.

The inside’s worse than the outside, cheap ugly bedspreads and burn marks in the carpet and a coffee maker with leftovers from the previous guests sitting cold and black. He tells Matthew to bring the clothes in from the car to see if anything fits, and cleans out the coffee maker to keep himself standing. It’s brewing in sputtering drips when Will lays down on the couch, cushions long since given up any hope of doing what their name would suggest, and he’s asleep before the pot is halfway full.

When he wakes again it’s either very late or very early, and he shuffles into the shower to wash off the smoke and grime and road, tugging on a pair of boxers left out from the sorting-through of clothing. Matthew’s asleep in the bed, limbs sprawled wide, and Will watches him for a few long minutes, quietly studying the parts of Matthew he’s never seen before - the cut of muscles, the black of his tattoos - and wonders what Matthew thought about when he watched Will. Finally, he sifts through the postcards Matthew brought back from wherever he went while Will was asleep, and with thin amusement he selects one with an image of the Appomattox Court House. Will scrawls out a quick note before curling up on the couch again to gather as much sleep as he can.

 

* * *

 

Jack,

You shouldn’t have asked me to help if you weren’t going to listen. I found someone else to listen instead, someone who _hears_. You tried to put an end to that, too. You’ll see him for what he is eventually, with a trail of bodies in his wake. Know that I did the best I could. It wasn’t enough. And now we’re gone.

Don’t follow us. I know what you’re doing and what you’re going to do, your movements and your missteps, and you know that I know. And if you don’t call off the alerts, people could get hurt.

You should have listened to Dr. Bloom when she told you not to bring me back in.

You should have listened to me.

Now let me go, before there’s more blood on your hands.

WG

 

* * *

 

They had collapsed into sleep without really thinking about an arrangement - Matthew on the bed, Will on the couch. Matthew shrugging off a borrowed t-shirt from Will, and Will pulling on a fresh shirt. They’d been on edge - neither daring to turn on the small, black television box in the motel room to see if their faces were being broadcast every several hours - and exhausted, the drive and the exhilaration getting to them.

When he wakes up, he sees Will lying - dozing - on the couch. A postcard covered in winding black ink is on a cracked, coffee-stained table beside him.

When Matthew shifts on the bed, stretching, Will stirs. He looks alarmed, for a second, probably used to a bedroom alone besides his dogs, and Matthew just gives him a crack of a smile.

“You,” he says, shaking his head. “That couch looks like a lumpy piece of junk. Come over here, Mr. Graham.”  The formality slips out without Matthew meaning to do so, and then he shakes it away with another smile, apologetic. This shouldn’t be uncomfortable at all, but it’s all very strange to the both of them.

Strange, but nice. There are cobwebs in the corners of the room and Matthew can smell a hint of dust and cigarette smoke. But he takes in his surroundings, as if he’s Will with his focus, his intensity, and the morning sunlight makes him want to fall asleep again. Before he really registers it, Will’s hovering near the bed.

“C’mere,” Matthew says, his voice still a sleepy rasp. The blanket shifts, and another weight dips down beside him at the mattress. They’re not touching, at least not yet. “What did you write to Jack Crawford?”

He feels Will’s breath on his ear. “It was,” Will says, “a - an admonition. A warning.”

“Hmm,” Matthew says, and says softly, “like mine.” He rolls his body to the side, and they’re face to face now. Matthew has to repress a smile when he sees Will’s gaze dip down to his chest slightly, across his muscles and stomach. Should he lean forward and take a kiss?

He does.

Will’s mouth parts open slightly, an invitation, and Matthew doesn’t kiss hard. They’re just warm, lazy kisses, as warm as the sunlight that is shining through the cracked windowpane and playing across the bed, across his naked skin. The road is waiting for them outside, but for now, they’re twined on the bed, pulling back from kisses.

“How does that old poem go again?” Matthew murmurs. “ _The road was so dimly lighted / There were no highway signs to guide / But they made up their minds / If all roads were blind / They wouldn’t give up till they died._ ”

“You killed a Bonnie and Clyde,” Will says – of course he recognizes the verse, maybe it was a couple of lines written across a PowerPoint slideshow in a lecture, maybe some student did an essay about it once. “The lonely hearts.”

Matthew’s head tilts to the side. “Yeah,” he says. “But death, y’know…it won’t come to that. Not for us.”

He reaches out for Will’s palms, and they sit like that for a while on the bed. Matthew reminds himself to tell Will that he’s always welcome to share the bed with him: there is no need for separation, for watching each other sleep from a distance. That was back at the hospital. It already feels so long ago.

 

* * *

 

They stop for breakfast at the cheap diner at the hotel, a simple buffet of waffles, eggs, bacon. It isn’t the best, but once you’re used to prison food, you can eat virtually everything. They gas up Will’s car and start out.

They hit North Carolina when it’s still Will’s turn – after about three hours -- and then Matthew takes over for four hours. The sides of the road are lined with green grass, and the sky looks very clear. Stretching out above them like it’ll never end. He twitches, sometimes, when he thinks that cars that pass might be a cop car. But it turns out, it never is, and Will always seems to notice Matthew’s subtle shift of body language, and reaches to touch his hand on the steering wheel.

And a smile flickers on the corners of Matthew’s mouth every time. There will probably always be like this: seeking reassuring contact without saying much about it. It’s something that will stay with them ever since the day they started sneaking touches to each other at the hospital.

He stops for gas in North Carolina, and then thinks something idly over.

“I’ll be back,” he tells Will, shortly, and directs Will to the small little store inside the gas station. “Pick the postcards this time. I saw some through the window. It’s my turn for the next one, okay?”

He can see doubt, worry, in Will’s eyes, but Will nods. “Be careful.”

It takes about two minutes until Matthew finds a clothing store. It takes about fifteen minutes until he walks out, nonchalantly holding a bag with clothes. He slips off Will’s jacket, shrugs on a hooded sweatshirt when he’s in the car – it’s the color burgundy, a deep dark red – and steadily looks at his eyes in the mirror. There. It’s been awhile since he’s stolen anything, but there, he’s done it. (Clothing sensors are so very easy to remove.)

Will doesn’t say anything about Matthew’s new clothes. Only looks at him, searchingly.

“They won’t see my face on the security cameras,” Matthew promises. “Don’t worry. Let’s find a motel in the next town or city or something nearby, okay?”

 

* * *

 

_A postcard of the Christ Episcopal Church. There is a weather vane on the church’s steeple – where is it pointing, Matthew wonders, randomly. He can’t make out the letters - where’s north?_

Dear Boss,

Today I stole some things. It’s a funny coincidence – this morning, I recited a poem of Bonnie Parker’s to Will. He recognized it, of course, clever him, and I wonder: is that the fate you and your FBI pals have in store for us? Down in a hail of gunfire? It’s a reluctant imagining, since you still feel like he’s your friend, but you must still be thinking about it.

How are you profiling us? Is Hannibal Lecter helping you? I can give you a hand. Neither of us is ‘the dominant partner’ here. We’re not feeding into a shared delusion of ours. Unless you think freedom is a delusion – in that case, that’s your problem.

 

* * *

 

They're only an hour outside of Asheville when Will decides to stop, after cutting through federal forests and wildlife refuges, shielded by the trees around them that feel somehow safer, somehow more secure than the wide open roads and the highways they take pains to avoid. Another shoddy motel that looks remarkably like the last, but outside it, mountains rise above pointed lines of pine that shake in the wind, lining rivers quickened by melting snow.

He gathers a bag from the car, watching as Matthew takes it in, all sparking electric energy in the way he breathes and stretches wide and limber and sets off down the hill to watch the water. He's never been in a place like this before, as far removed from the stoop-lined streets of Baltimore as one could imagine.

The flutter of warmth Will feels in seeing Matthew spread his wings surprises him, heart spiking sharp as the mountains around them when Matthew meets his look with a crooked smile.

This time, Will waits for Matthew in bed instead, trying not to watch as he emerges from a shower and slings a towel over his hips. He's selfish with desire to be near Matthew, greedy to drink down the adoration he feels in every lingering look or touch or when their mouths meet in languid kisses.

Will doesn't take more than that, not yet - it's enough for now to sate himself in this way, to soothe away the ache of bruises still laid deep in his thighs, scratch marks angry down his back, and memories that sing sharp each time he feels the burn of those touches laid rough upon his skin like firebrands.

Matthew gives what Will asks of him, as he always has, as he most assuredly always will, resisting the urge to ask for more than Will can readily give. A change, from those who took whatever they could snare, but Will can feel it in Matthew, desirous tension stretching sweetly through the restraint of the fingers that slide through Will’s hair, that grasp his neck, that try to rub away the scars Will bears with soft circles.

"We match," Matthew observes, and Will arches a brow when Matthew traces the circle of scar tissue on his shoulder. Will swallows hard at the feeling before shrugging lightly away from it.

"Same gun," Will notes in return, a hint of dry amusement. "Same shooter."

"'No weapon that is fashioned against you will succeed,'" Matthew speaks against Will's lips with a grin, and it’s almost enough to make Will laugh, before their mouths close soft together to seal his reassurance.

They sleep alongside each other for the first time that night and are contented to do so, Will’s fingers tracing the lines of Matthew’s tattoos until he falls asleep against him.

The next morning, flipping through the newspaper while the motel manager counts the cash for the room, Will is surprised to see himself and Matthew there on page 10. A short piece about two fugitives trying to escape arson charges against a federal building. It all sounds so dramatic and Will wonders with bleak humor if they should save it. He decides to tear it out for Matthew. He'll think it's funny, surely.

And he does, sticking it proudly next to the radio, unable to hide his delight just as Will's unable to hide his chagrin.

"It means that they've got blotters out," Will tells him. "This is a local paper, Matt - they're casting a wide net."

“Let them,” Matthew responds without hesitation, and kicks his feet up onto the dashboard. “We’re smarter than they are. Faster. And we’re not afraid.”

Will doesn’t answer. He wonders if Bonnie Parker clipped newspaper articles about herself, too, and if those survived the firefight better than she did.

They clear three hours of winding road and broken-static radio and a brief detour off the road to relieve themselves and steal swift, breathless kisses pressed against the car with none but the trees to see them, carving through dense pine forest and passing into Georgia.

Another stop, just after noon, at a diner outside of Rome, a little brick building old and easily missed that might once have been a house.

Will stretches now, feeling the days of driving in his shoulders, stiffening hour by hour. He checks the map, tracing a line, lips forming silent calculations - if they can make it into Alabama tonight, just around Birmingham, it’ll just be a hard plunge south and one more day’s full drive from there to the swamps that promise them sanctuary.

He blushes stark scarlet when Matthew’s lips pass against his cheek, and glances to either side down the empty road to see that no one’s watching.

“Careful,” Will mutters in admonition, sighing when Matthew tangles his fingers in Will’s hair instead. “People will say something here, Matt. They’ll notice.”

“Let them,” he answers again, tugging the map from where Will’s hands pin it to the hood and heading into the diner.

Matthew insists on ordering a grilled cheese for Will when the latter tries to get by on coffee alone, nerves strung thin enough already. He feels Matthew press his foot lightly against his shin beneath the table, and settles back into the booth.

“What will we do?” Matthew asks, leaning forward with a crooked grin. “When we get there.”

Will shrugs, running a hand up through his hair. “Find a place. Find work. Boat motors, maybe. Again.”

Pleased enough by the answer,  Matthew leans back again, watching out the plate glass beside them for a moment before his expression falls sharp. “Shit.”

An instant later Will sees the state trooper pull up alongside their car, slowing to a park. “Stop,” Will breathes as Matthew starts to stand, snaring his hand across the table. “Stop. Wait.”

Aching seconds pass long as lifetimes as the officer slides out, heavyset and languid, stretching his back with a grimace. He lifts a hand to greet the waitress through the window, hardly sparing a glance to the beater beside him until he does. A pause, leaning closer to the window.

“Wait,” Will cautions again, but a furrow in the brow of the officer strikes him cold. “The shotgun. Goddammit, I left the -”

He breaks from the table fast, Matthew on his heels, but Will lifts a hand to keep him there, admonishing him to stay. Matthew’s tension roils deep inside Will, a pitbull at his heels, and Will forces his steps to slow as he exits the diner at as slow a pace as he can manage.

Matthew watches, reluctantly slipping back into the booth. Will offers a faint smile to the trooper, who nods towards the car. A question asked and a shrugging answer given, a forced laugh with it. Palms out a little, unassuming, as he winds his way through an explanation.

Something in the trooper’s face changes, as obvious to Matthew as it is to Will, whose body tenses sharp when he sees the officer turn back towards his car with a shake of his head just as Will feels a tremor rocket through him. They’ve come so far, so fucking far for this to end here like this over a shitty old shotgun in the car and bad plates, stupid mistakes just like the ones that always bring down people like them. _There’s nothing new in the world_ , he had written once. Not in Baltimore and not in Georgia and not for Bonnie Parker and not for Will Graham.

Not here, not like this. Not after their trials and their lamentations and their exodus.

It happens in an instant, judgment rendered cataclysmic as lightning as Will brings down his fist against the back of the trooper’s neck and spills forth a plague of blood across the dust.

Matthew’s out of the seat before the body hits the ground, door slamming as wide open as the wound gouged deep across the man’s head that Will stares down on in stunned silence.

Will starts to speak but he can’t find words, choking dry on the earth that rises up around their feet, and finds Matthew through the clouds and offers Matthew his hand, keys sharp and scarlet and forgotten, forgotten when he lashed it out to stagger the man now lying still at their feet and drew blood instead. Somewhere far away Will can hear the waitress screaming, see blood dripping from own fingers as Matthew snatches the keys away and shoves Will into the car.

Will sees himself staring back from the dashboard, and in a moment of clarity figures at least he’ll have an answer about what happened to the pictures during the firefight.

 

* * *

 

_A tacky postcard with “GREETINGS FROM ROME, GA” in large letters across the front, and sketches of city scenes within them. There is no greeting, and no sign-off, but the handwriting is looping and loose and painfully familiar to Jack Crawford when it arrives at his desk._

It will be on your conscience. Not mine.

 

* * *

 

There are motels in Rome, but staying here would be risky. Matthew directs them over to a nearby city called Adairsville.

Although he isn’t aware of it, it’s a place where things intersect. Charles Arthur Floyd, better known as ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’ was born here. The FBI attributed his death to their work: gunned down, and he died from the wounds. And there was a Civil War battle, here, once. In another universe, Will Graham will stand at Shiloh and think _Shiloh doesn’t care_. But who knows if these things are bad omens, or if they mean anything at all.

They stop at a Quality Inn. The hotel is a cut above the ratty motels they’ve been staying in, but he decides that it’s worth it. Their trip is almost over, and they need a place to lay low, and, truthfully, a place where Matthew can calm Will down.

Will doesn’t seem to need it: he is sunk in a stoic silence while Matthew drives. It isn’t hysteria or shock, but he’s clearly shaken.

In the car, Matthew makes sure that Will has a fresh fishing jacket on, shrugged over his shirt which has specks of blood on it. Will’s fist is still bloody - he hasn’t attempted to wipe it off – and he just shrugs his hand into his jacket pocket.

Matthew gets them a room at the desk (two beds, a view of a terraced pool area and the lush greenery of trees and a road behind it) and when they get inside, he drops one of Will’s bags, lets the keycards splatter on the carpeted floor. He draws the sickly yellow-red striped curtains closed, and his next words spill out grimly: “That was my fault.”

“I’m the one who used to work with the FBI,” Will says, finally speaking. He takes his hand out of his pocket. “If anything, I should have planned this more carefully. There are people who could’ve made fake plates for me. Or I could’ve rented a car, under a false name—“

“No,” Matthew says. “We were in a rush. Trying to get out of there fast. There wasn’t enough time – I didn’t – I don’t expect you to own a manual about the exact steps to take when you’re a fugitive.”

He takes a hold of Will’s bloodied fist, and brings it to his mouth, running his lips across the knuckles. He hears Will’s breath hitch, maybe in surprise, and he twitches a smile against Will’s skin. This will be another scar for Will. Not something physically permanent, but invisible, as inerasable as Matthew’s tattoos. He lets the kiss trail off onto Will’s fingertips, undeterred by the taste of copper blood, and then Will lets out a small gasp when Matthew starts to suck his fingers.

“What are you--?”

“Blood looks good on you,” Matthew whispers, pausing, and then he continues to lick, to tease, Will’s fingers. His own fingers pry at Will’s stained shirt, curling around the dry blood, scraping at the flecks. He will have to remember to clean under his fingernails later.

“Matthew,” Will says, slowly, “are you going to…?”

Now? he seems to be asking, because they haven’t done this yet, and now of all times, Matthew feels like he wants to fuck Will until they forget that they’re afraid and uncertain; he wants only to think _Will, Will, Will_. He can’t fight back his arousal for Will’s capability for sudden ferocity, at the twist of his arm when he struck. As he sucks Will’s fingers, he sees Will’s eyes droop, heavy-lidded, his face flushed with warmth.

When he pulls away, he calls him, “Dear Will,” with a smile, and guides him to the bed. Will stumbles backward onto the lumpy red comforter, the tan sheets, and Matthew is quick to remove Will’s shirt (another reminder: they’ll have to carefully get the blood off later). This bed is probably one of the best during their travel – no coiled springs or sagging mattress – and he nearly wants to congratulate himself; they could’ve picked a worse place to do this.

Matthew closes his mouth around a nipple, his tongue playing across it, and then he does to the same to the other. He leaves a trail of kisses on Will’s chest, dragging down to Will’s scar – _we match_ – and he softens at the instant that he catches a glimpse of Will’s face.

He is so impossibly beautiful. Will’s eyes are flickering, intent, watching Matthew’s ministrations and feeling them. He is lying back and allowing Matthew to do this to him: look at him. He helped Matthew set his fire, flames like a consuming ravenous animal, and he is fast, knocking an enemy to the ground like he’s nothing. And Matthew wants to congratulate himself again – Will chose him - Will chose him; they exchanged letters that amounted to this moment, when they’re twined and they have a new life, a rebirth, ahead of them; Will still has traces on his fist no matter how much Matthew had sucked at it, as he’s sucking on Will’s nipples now--

Will groans, a low guttural noise from the back of his throat, his body trembling against Matthew’s. Matthew can see the arousal through his pants. He strips off Will’s pants hurriedly, casting it on the floor like he did with Will’s duffel bag and the keycards, and does the same with his own pants.

“You look pleased with yourself,” Will says, hoarsely. A grin, silly and stupid and inexplicably endearing, is on his face. His dear Will.

“I am,” Matthew says with a smirk, and his hand moves to trace Will’s erection. He moves to press their hips together – boxer fabric on boxer fabric – and he bites down a moan, sees Will’s face contort, his mouth moving to form an unsaid word: a plea or a prayer or Matthew’s name, something. His cock is hard and it’s twitching against Will’s, the form of it anyway, _so fucking good._

They’re grinding against each other until Matthew can’t take it; he pries off his boxers, watches Will follow his example; and Will’s dick is _warm_ now that it’s rubbing on his skin, It makes him moan, a noise that he lets out, this time, and Will grunts, rubs and rocks against him harder, and Matthew feels his orgasm creep up to him, and it washes over him. He comes, semen splattered between their thighs.

Will comes after him – he’s quiet when he does, but he is shaking – and Matthew kisses him between choked gasps. They seem to almost collapse into each other, and Matthew pulls Will tighter against him, an embrace.

“I wrote,” Will says, and he still seems unbalanced, still trying to keep his head up above water, “I wrote – a letter I didn’t send you. Because Jack caught you.”

“You did?” Matthew says. He doesn’t know whatever this has brought on. He asks the question that he knows Will is waiting him to ask, “What’d it say?”

And Will smiles, a tilt of his head and curve of his mouth. “I said in that letter that I love you. I said,” and he recites it, with that eidetic memory of his, _“We can go anywhere, Matthew, anywhere we want._ ”

And he describes to Matthew about the fire, about the fish, about the woods, about the whiskey, about his head on Matthew’s lap, and a kiss. It’s vivid, as if Will is relaying back a memory, and Matthew sees the vision ebb around him, as if he’s experiencing it himself. He can see the trees; he can hear the crickets and the song of the fire; he can feel Will’s mouth on his, a sensation that is now becoming familiar to him.

“You’re such a romantic,” Matthew tells him, and he says that with a little laugh. And he says, “Love you, too.”

Things that will become familiarity: he curls in close, resting a hand on Will’s scar, and they kiss once more, and then again.

 

* * *

 

Will falls asleep against him like this, both of them naked and drained and happy. Matthew is able to untangle his body from Will’s, and, regretfully, releases Will’s hand, letting it drop against his waist. He arranges the blanket on top of Will, gently, and remembers doing the same thing before back in the hospital: Will Graham is sleeping inside his cell and Matthew tiptoes inside. Graham does not have a blanket because Chilton is ‘asserting authority’, in his words, frustrated by Graham’s silence in therapy sessions and revoking privileges to anything that might be a comfort to Graham. It is childish and immature, and in due time, Matthew returns Graham’s blanket, settling the warmth and softness around him.

(And all of this will feel like so long ago, Will had told him he’d written. It does – it honestly does. They’ve come so far already.)

Matthew dresses himself. He’s loath to leave the room right now, because it’s safer, it’s hidden, and it’s with Will, but he knows that they need to solve the car problem.

The first time he got booked was for boosting cars. Fishing to see if he could sell anything inside of them, and get a ride out of them himself. Not his proudest moment, getting caught.

He still remembers how to hotwire a car. He hopes that he can successfully ditch Will’s car.

He returns with a battered white Ford truck. He’s transferred the bags to the back.

When Will stares at the car with surprise, Matthew grins. “For later – it’s big enough for fishing equipment. And for the dogs.”

 

* * *

 

_As if to reinforce Will’s postcard, Matthew sends a postcard himself – it’s blank, however, with only the designated address written on it. It partly is a way that might mislead the trail: unlike the Rome postcard, they don’t pass through Athens, where the specific landmark is. It is partly a message._

_The Tree that Owns Itself_ , the postcard declares, picturing a white oak.

_He is who he is. You can’t stop him._

 

* * *

 

It's past Matthew's shoulder that Will sees their faces, stilted images from courthouse security cameras interspersed with the mugshots now familiar from newspapers snared on their way out of motels and gas stations. Will keeps the clippings now, rather than Matthew, torn and folded carefully in the envelopes of the last letters they exchanged before their flight.

"Matt," Will breathes against his skin, arms looped loose over his shoulders and hands splayed across his tattoos, to feel the way his muscles shift beneath his skin with constant wonder, one leg wrapped over his hips.

"My dear Will," Matthew responds with a grin against his neck.

He fidgets beneath the affection, blush blooming. "Matt," Will insists again, pale amusement. "We're on the news."

Matthew rocks his hips down against Will a few more times, grumbling when he rolls over beside him to watch the muted television behind them. Will thinks he feels a tension, a flicker of worry, pass between them but he can't be sure it's not just his own. The story changes, a multi-car pile-up just outside of Jackson, and Will sighs against Matthew's ear to draw him back.

"We're almost there," Will assures him, assures them both, and he arches shuddering as Matthew presses into him again.

 

* * *

 

“Matt. Matt, wake up.”

Will shakes him, the stubbornly deep sleeper spread across the bed, and Matthew drags a hand across his eyes.

“Matt, come on. Now. Get up now.”

“What’s wr-”

“Get up,” Will hisses, keeping his voice low even in the room that’s empty but for them. “We have to go. Now. We have to go now.”

Matthew doesn’t ask again, springing up with surprising speed considering the depth of his sleep, and grasping his pants where they were peeled off onto the floor the night before beneath Will’s eager fingers, fingers now flexing tight into anxious fists.

“I went down to pay,” Will explains, searching over the room to gather their bags, digging through them. “There’s police, in the lobby. By the car,” he adds, brows drawing in above his glasses. That too, that moment of hope - of a future building up a house and work and a life - taken as suddenly as everything else.

Will swallows hard. “We have to leave it.” He grabs the map as Matthew shoves his feet into his shoes, and spreads it over the floor, crouching low and tracing lines.

“We can get another one,” Matthew tells him, stopping just long enough to run a hand through Will’s hair, to let his fingers curl against the back of his neck. “We’re almost there, remember?”

“Hurry.”

Will waits, just at the bottom of the stairs. Questions, a search for credit card information that Will knew better than to provide, but not so many voices that they’ll have locked it down. He wets his lips, waiting until he hears silence down the hallway towards the kitchen, and turns fast with Matthew just behind him. A hushed apology to the kitchen staff who ask them to leave, before Will picks up into almost a run, out of the delivery door, and swears a sharp curse of gratitude when no alarms sound.

He doesn’t need to tell Matthew to hurry again - sure in fact that Matthew could outrun him even on a bad day - carrying what they can into the woods that surround the motel, the kind of place Will always chooses, small and dingey and surrounded by nature he can breathe in deep and pretend it feels like home, avoiding the cities and their outskirts that Matthew is drawn to for all the same reasons.

Even then, it’s not as comforting as the duffle bag he unshoulders for Matthew to carry, heavy with the shotgun that’s already caused them grief, and now may end up as its resolution.

“Bonnie and Clyde,” Will murmurs, looking away when he sees the grin that catches the corner of Matthew’s mouth.

The shadows stretch long around them this early, scarcely past dawn, and Will takes a moment on entering the woods to place the motel behind them, due south, reorienting themselves to head west - always west, always south, always further away from the blood they’ve spilled behind them. He steers just off the path, keeping that thin clearing within eyesight, but far enough away that the woods might shield them from the eyesight of others.

Cars in the distance, just faint.

“The staff told them,” Will surmises softly, pausing his footfalls over broken branches and leaves levelled in the approaching winter. “Figured that would happen.”

He startles when Matthew snares his hand, pulls him close to bring their mouths together, in the sight of none by the woods, for now. He pushes his fingers through Will’s hair, clutching at his curls and breathing warmth against him. It feels like faith and Will lets his eyes close, achingly tired. He curls his hand over Matthew’s wrist and wonders, with exhaustion, if they could just lay down here. Lay down right in the woods and wrap themselves together and stay warm that way through the whole winter, until they’re forgotten by others and until they forget who they used to be and until they forget who they are now, and just exist in each other until they emerge triumphant like spring when the sun returns.

“The angel guides,” Will finally says, pressing a kiss just gently to the corner of Matthew’s mouth, warm and fragile as an ember. “The prophet protects.”

 

* * *

 

_A note unsent, stored in Will’s bag and scrawled sleepless across several pages of the little notepad he took from the motel room._

You’ve never listened to me, unless it was convenient for you. When I told you not to ask me to come back, you did anyway. When I told you about what he had done, you charged me instead. And when I warned you what would happen if the alerts weren’t called off, you let them run.

Because it suits you. Because it brings you some sort of glory, at the expense of others.

I hope that trooper is okay. You won’t believe that either, but I do. I didn’t mean to hurt him like that.

I don’t regret what had to happen, but I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.

My only regret was letting you convince me to come back, now that I see the death that’s come by my hands and by yours.

You won’t stop us, though. Not now. You’ll only make it worse.

I’m clever enough to avoid them, to avoid you. That you do know. What you don’t know is how clever he is - how fearless and strong. He is braver than you could imagine - more than I even knew. Our freedom’s not yours to take, not anymore - and even if you do succeed in taking our lives, know that it was all by our design.

“Terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone.”

Come for us then. We are not afraid.

 

* * *

 

They finally lay down – rest – but in the next town over, in the next motel, having driven there in a newly stolen car. They are both shaking with adrenaline, shaking and shaking, and their bodies fit together when they finally pull themselves underneath the bedcovers, not letting the light in.

Matthew has his mouth on Will’s ear, and lets a litany spill out, an old and long remembered prayer: _Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy._ The repetition of the kyrie is a chorus, an exaltation, weaving in and out in patterns. He can feel his breath slow against the words, can feel Will listening to the rhythm.

_Mirror of justice, pray for us. Seat of wisdom, pray for us. Cause of our joy, pray for us. Spiritual vessel, pray for us. Vessel of honor, pray for us. Singular vessel of devotion, pray for us—_

The litany meanders on. Will is sleeping. The prayer is ending. Matthew sleeps before he can say the finality, the _Amen._

 

* * *

 

In the morning, at the wheel, Matthew wonders out loud, “Sometimes I wonder: there used to be an old belief that corpses bleed in the presence of their murderers. If I went back to Baltimore, do you think that Dr. Lecter’s wrists would start leaking red?”

“He’s not a corpse,” Will says, with a raised brow.

“He could be,” Matthew says. If they went back and put their minds to it. There is a simmering anger beneath Matthew’s skin – he’s worried about their pursuers, about the near brush in the woods. He wants someone to blame and to hurt.

“If corpses really did that,” Will murmurs, “his dinners would be overflowing with blood.”

“ _He turned their river into blood; they could not drink from their stream_ ,” Matthew says, in agreement. He made a vague gesture with one hand, thinking of Exodus as well, of striking a staff into the Nile and making the fish die. “It’s a fascinating myth. Rigor mortis happened in corpses, then bodies bloated, and sometimes they bled, and somehow that superstition came to be. Like that old belief that your eyes preserve the last image you see when you die.”

He thinks of Lecter’s pupils dilating darkly. Imagines if his image would have been printed on them, if that superstition held: Matthew Brown covered in blood, with his arms raised, sly and taunting and proud. Bloodlust is a familiar, almost friendly instinct, rising in him in the form of a call. Matthew tilts his head back, and knows that amidst this rushed and violent flight, he will need it.

He knows that Will has it, but he doesn’t know the shape of it, the size of it. He is not terrified; he is excited.

“Matthew,” Will says, into the silence. “Teach me a litany.”

“Sure. I don’t know too many, but I know some.” Matthew considers the request, and thinks of bleeding injuries, and says St. Clare’s Litany of the Sacred Wounds. Hannibal Lecter is anything but sacred, but he likes the sound of it anyway. _Grant me to be victorious over Thine enemies, so that, by the power of Thy grace, I may overcome them._

Will doesn’t need Matthew to repeat it again. He gets it right on the first try.

 

* * *

 

_At a gas station, before they leave Mississippi, Matthew writes an unsent letter of his own._

Dear Ma,

I’ve been teaching your prayers to someone. You would have liked him, I think. I wish you could have met him. He can memorize those long litanies so fast, and he’s gotten fairly familiar with the Bible, because of my indirect influence.

He likes animals, like you did. You were too busy working to care for any cats and dogs, and you thought I was too young. So we never ended up having any, even though I know you wanted to (although I experimented on our neighbors’ cats in unorthodox ways; I’m not apologetic about it because it was enlightening, figuratively and literally, but I guess they weren’t my best targets).

I haven’t honestly thought about you in ages. Every year, the anniversary of your passing goes by and I don’t stop by your grave, and I don’t pray for you. You’re gone. Death’s found you.

But I’m thinking about you now. In this chase, death might find me. Death might claim him. I wonder if we’ll see you, in the next life. If God is good, he’ll let Will and I go together. If he’s cruel, he’ll leave one of us alive. Or maybe he will cast me into Hell, and we’re separated anyway. (Ma, you’ve been watching me. You know what I am. You know what I can do.)

Whatever happens to us, please be there. If we don’t get our peace, our little house with dogs and fish and fires in the woods, let Heaven exist. If it’s not for me, if my fires are too hot for Heaven, then make sure there’s a place for Will. See if there’s any dogs in Heaven that don’t mind a former FBI investigator full of nightmares and bravery and pain.

I wish I stopped, at least once or twice, to put roses on your grave.

_It’s almost over. It could be almost over. Soon, they’re in Louisiana with a little over two hours left until St. Mary Parish. Matthew tugs at the white strings of his hoodie, feels it tighten around his neck, and then loosens his grip. Will had written that they weren’t afraid. But Matthew is – he doesn’t know, he doesn’t want to call it fear. He wants to bring his arms around Will for reassurance, but they have to keep driving._

_Louisiana is Will’s territory. He takes the driver’s seat._

 

* * *

 

Will knows this place, though long since parted from it, as well as he knew Wolf Trap. Enough to know that no side roads would carry them here, the swamps too thick and the stolen car too poorly equipped to handle the dirt roads that wind narrow through the willows overhung with spanish moss.

“What will we do,” Matthew asks, and Will nearly completes the sentence for him, “when we get there?”

His favorite question. Their favorite way to pass the time and the long roads that now seem to finally have an end so near.

Sleep, Will wants to answer as he typically does, to hear the suggestive things that Matthew grins at him from the passenger seat, all the ways in which they will sleep together, none of which actually involve sleeping.

They’re just a few hours out now from the Parish, rural and overgrown, that Will hopes holds some sort of answer to that question.

“Find a place to stay,” Will responds, distant. “Pay rent with cash until we can get our feet under us again. Keep our heads down until all this blows over.”

And then what? Will asks himself. He glances sidelong at Matthew, feet up on the dash, watching the thickening greenery through the window. Will feels the tension in him, quickening like a pulse blooming metallic with adrenaline, a deep itch that Will wonders if Matthew will be able to scratch without fire. Without blood.

Without starting the whole cycle over again, embers giving life to immolations.

Embers that Will couldn’t imagine trying to smother out, even if it meant protecting himself - protecting them both. Embers that flare bright in Matthew’s eyes when he looks back at Will, a crooked smile appearing as their eyes meet.

Will looks back to the road, chest tightening at the sensation.

“I don’t know if it’ll work,” Will admits, finally, after so many miles and so much ill-conceived planning and so much desperation to just be alone, together.

Matthew draws one of Will’s hands away from the steering wheel before he even finishes the sentence. He presses their palms together, as they’ve done since before they knew each other by name, by heart, by body.

Perhaps too bright, the both of them, to hide in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

_Writing ends their story as it began, but this time with a news article read by neither - no longer seeking each other through words but joined by them._

LOUISIANA - The flight of two fugitives and a federal manhunt was brought to an end on Tuesday. At a checkpoint established in conjunction with local officials and the FBI, former FBI Special Investigator Will Graham and escaped felon Matthew Brown were killed after an exchange of gunfire that left several wounded.

Wanted for arson and escape from lawful custody pending charges of attempted murder, the pair fled from Baltimore, Maryland and avoided law officers across six states before Brown opened fire on a checkpoint arranged to intercept a presumed flight to Louisiana, Graham’s home state.

Numerous materials were found in the stolen vehicle that first drew police attention, including letters intended for the FBI and members of Brown’s family. Previous investigations into their places of residence yielded an array of written materials exchanged between the two in advance of the crimes for which they were sought, indicating that their intentions were pre-meditated by several months, prior to the attempted murder of noted psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, for which Brown was later arraigned.

Graham, a professor at Quantico and registered special investigator with the FBI, had recently been brought into custody for crimes related to the Chesapeake Ripper murders. He was tried but found not guilty. When contacted, the FBI had no comment.

The injured officers are in stable condition and are expected to make a full recovery.

 

* * *

 

_Men dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near, and came; our time had expired. Our pursuers were swifter than eagles in the air, They harassed us on the mountains and waylaid us in the desert._

Lamentations 18-19

 

 


End file.
